Legal and contractual protection mechanisms for the child

• Abou El Fadel Mohamed BAHLOULI

  University of Oran 2 Mohamed Ben Ahmed

• Kada HOUARI

  University of Mascara

This study examines the protection of children's rights within Algerian legislation, tracing the historical trajectory from the marginalization of children—who were once prosecuted as adults without regard for their developmental vulnerability—to their contemporary constitutional and statutory recognition. The analysis demonstrates that Algeria has progressively aligned its domestic legal framework with international standards, particularly through ratification of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the constitutional entrenchment of child protection in both the 1996 and 2020 Constitutions. The study identifies Law No. 15-12 of 2015 as a pivotal legislative instrument that consolidated previously dispersed provisions into a unified framework addressing children in dangerous situations, juvenile offenders, and victims. However, the research reveals a significant structural deficiency: the absence of a uniform legal age definition across offenses, with statutory thresholds varying between 13, 16, and 18 years. This legislative inconsistency undermines the coherence of protective mechanisms and may compromise the efficacy of safeguards depending on the child's age. The study concludes that while Algeria has established a comprehensive protection continuum from prenatal life to legal majority, harmonizing the age-based criteria remains imperative to ensure the uniform application of the best interests of the child principle.

• PDF

Copyright (c) 2026 Art Law and Accounting Reporter

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.